Srinagar: The police fired teargas canisters as a huge crowd on Thursday evening gathered inside the Srinagar’s Grand Mosque premises to offer prayer in absentia for the two Pakistani soldiers killed in reported Indian firing along the Line of Control (LoC) during the previous night.
Witnesses said that people lined up on a road along the shop-line on the southern side of the mosque complex and subsequently a cleric led them into ‘nimaz-e-jinaza gaibana’ prayer for the slain Pakistani soldiers. Soon the police accompanied by the jawans of the CRPF came rushing towards the spot from Nowhatta side and fired a few teargas canisters into the crowd. “But by that time the jinaza prayer was already over,” said a witness Zubair Ahmed. The security forces’ action led to a brief clash between the two sides, he added.
While the Kashmir Valley remained shut on the 83rd day on Thursday, the police said the situation remained by and large peaceful. “There was no untoward incident reported from any part of the Valley,” it said in a statement here.
It also said that during the past 24 hours, the police arrested 73 more such persons who were “involved in causing disturbances by harassing shopkeepers, creating disruptions in traffic movement by placing obstructions on roads and lanes, besides involved in damaging public and private property in different parts of the valley.”
Meanwhile, curfew was lifted for 12 hours from 7 am in eastern town of Kishtwar in the Jammu region on Thursday.
